The Vermeer Job
by Axiotea
Summary: The FBI knew him as 20 year old Nick Halden, in for fraud, among other things. The thing was, he was 16 year old Neal Caffrey, and he was in over his head. His past finally catching up to him, Neal might need Peter's help, and that would mean confessing to more than he was up to. Paternal!Peter kid!Neal disclaimer: property of USA network & Jeff Eastin. R&R!
1. The Heist

"Just let it go, Keller, come on, he promises he won't talk!" 16-year-old Neal Caffrey pleaded with Mathew Keller. The job was supposed to be simple, to steal one of the five Vermeers in gallery 632 of the Met. Keller, his associate Wilkes, and himself were supposed to bypass security, do a sleazy slash-and-grab and get the hell out. Neal had been opposed to the plan since day one, mainly because he hated working with either Keller or Wilkes. He could do _much_ better, and who the hell planned to slash-and-grab a Vermeer? Exigent circumstances, however, had forced him into rolling with Keller one last time.

_Breath, Neal, just breath and everything will be fine._

He had promised to himself to never do a job for Keller again last time, after an innocent bystander had ended up two weeks in hospital. Here he was again, anyway, much good his promises did to him.

_ This is for Kate! _Neal reminded himself.

Kate Moreau, Neal's girlfriend; she had gone missing three days ago, roughly around the time Keller first approached him with the job. He hadn't made the connection at first, not until the video.

Mozzie found it, no post-stamp, so it was delivered personally. Mozz had wanted to high tail it out of the place as soon as he realized their hiding spot had been made, but Neal managed to persuade him to watch what the hell was inside the burner CD first, thank god. At first they though it was a prank, or maybe someone they actually knew wanted help out of a sticky situation. All theories flew out the window as soon as Kate's face appeared on the screen.

Three days later here they were, Mozzie was back at their place cleaning out any trace of them ever existing, preparing to move to a safer residence as soon as Neal gave the word. Kate was being held hostage by Keller in god knows where, he and Mozzie had even looked for possible locations out of the country, but the trail was cold, Keller, or whoever he was working for, was good. They found no evidence. Cero, zilch, nada.

And here he was, trying to convince Keller that killing Wilkes in the middle of a job gone abysmally wrong was a terrible idea.

Keller had assured him, time and time again, that they had every contingency planned, every escape route and plan b to freaking plan z planned down to the second. This had been his first clue that Keller and Wilkes weren't doing this alone.

Keller was a smart guy, and almost as good a strategist as Neal or Mozz were, but he never did put this much though into a job, much less if it were a simple, primitive stunt like this one. There was also the fact that Keller seemed to be as much in the dark about the subtleties of the job as he was.

It was simple, Keller wanted Neal to make the forgery and lift the painting. Wilkes was there in case they ran into trouble, as the -unnecessary in Neal's opinion- muscle of the operation. Keller went for supervision. As soon as they were a safe distance away from the Museum Neal would be given the address of the place where Kate was being held in exchange for the painting. Not the best deal ever, since Keller, or whoever was pulling the strings, could easily double cross them and keep both Kate and the painting, but it was the best he and Mozzie could manage under the circumstances. They had managed to disable security surprisingly easily, which would have been a red flare if Neal had not been so engrossed in the Kate situation. They had already replaced the painting and were high tailing it out of there when they heard the tell-tale sign of police sirens.

They were royally _screwed_.

It was around that time that Wilkes decided to blame Keller for getting them busted, they should have been stealthier. Keller lost it. He claimed it had been Wilkes that had set him up from the get go, that he wanted to get caught so he could rat them out to the Feds, but that he, Keller, laughed last, because he was going to kill him before he had time to even look the Feds in the eye, so Keller pulled out his gun, which led them to the present situation.

"I don't think you understand how much I cannot do that George" Keller answered, as he pulled off the gun's security with a loud _click!_

Right, Keller didn't know his name, right now he was George Devore, international art collector, forger and fence.

How anyone ever fell for his cover Neal would never understand. Sure he was tall, but all of his aliases were _at least_ 20 years old, and he was freaking sixteen for gods sake! They had smoke where their brains should be if they though that his sixteen year old self was 27, he didn't look even remotely close to 27.

Neal watched in horror as Keller ripped the painting out of his hands, firing a quick shot at Wilkes before running out of the gallery. The police sirens grew louder, but all Neal could hear was his own blood rushing through his ears in a fit of panic as he tried to help Wilkes.

Wilkes was _not_ dying tonight, not under his watch, least of all killed by a gun. He though frantically as he applied pressure into the wound on Wilkes's shoulder. This man couldn't die, not after last time, not after his mom, people shouldn't die of gunshot wounds.

Neal was engrossed on Wilkes, when he felt a strong pair of arms try to haul him away. Barely registering what was happening he started trashing against his captor. _Keller._ Keller had come back to kill him, he was a witness. As soon as Neal realized this he trashed harder, he couldn't fail Kate, or Mozz, he couldn't let Wilkes die, he couldn't fail his mom, not again. He was tackled to the floor where he landed on his head with a bang. In the confusion no one must have noticed, but things went slightly blurry, and he was suddenly too tired to fight against whoever was pinning him down. With a mumbled I'm sorry to everyone he had let down tonight, Neal stopped struggling.

* * *

_Earlier that morning..._

Peter Burke was getting frustrated. First of all, his wife had hinted heavily during breakfast that their new neighbors were sketchy, and that she may, or may not, have seen some allegedly illegal stuff going on. Peter had been married to El for ten years now, so he knew that whenever his wife got scared she had a nasty habit of stretching the truth, actually, she never outright lied, but rather implied that things were worse than they actually were. Nevertheless, he had gone to work feeling slightly concerned for her safety.

Then, he had caught a lead on Steve Tabernackle -_His name is_ _Nick Halden!_ he reminded himself - only for it to turn out to be bogus.

This guy was actually good, and while Peter loved chasing the smart ones, he had been after Steve -_NICK!_- for three years now, and it was high time that the guy was put behind bars and be damned. The thing was, Nick Halden was good, because Nick actually knew how to keep his hands clean. While they had a mile long list of crimes, forgeries and confidence scams with his name on them there wasn't even a single one that they could pin on him. This guy was great. Then there was the whole name issue. The first time this guy appeared under their radar they knew him as Gary Rydell, millionaire playboy. The guy was practically a ghost, they had heard the name on the streets during a smuggling operation stakeout but never got a visual on him. About a year later they realized that the name they had him under was an alias, and the con was actually a certain Steve Tabernackle, though the story hadn't changed much, the guy was an international playboy and Jett settler, involved in some sort of investment fraud. And Steve had a way with aliases, that year they found out about not only Gary the alleged smuggler, but also a certain George Danvary, successful business man who dabbled in embezzlement, Neal Armstrong, Nicholas Monroe, Victor Moureau and even Chris Gates of the Interpol Art Crimes division. How the guy managed to pass as an Interpol agent was beyond him. Connecting the aliases without visual had been hard enough, for all they knew this man could be bald, five feet tall and heavily overweight. The interesting thing with him was that, which each name change, the guy also changed age, ranging from a ridiculous nineteen to about twenty eight, meaning that the kid was actually pretty young, definitely younger than Peter's almost forty years.

The new information they had on him confirmed Nicholas's name "Steve" as yet another alias, and the agent was incredibly frustrated at being conned yet again. Still, last month they had their first visual on him, confirming what they already expected, though looking rather lanky for a twenty year old and with a kid's innocent face, the guy was extremely good looking, a thing which must have helped him to charm the pants off of any of his marks. And the visual only confirmed their theory that they had finally cracked Nick and all of his aliases, but the trail turned up to be colder than Siberia.

Peter was musing at all of this when his probie Diana appeared at the door.

"Boss, may I come in? I think I have something that will make up for loosing James Bonds"

Right, James Bonds was the code name he had made up for Ste-_Nick!_

"Yeah, sure, what do you have for me?"

"A man called the bureau today stating that he had intel on a heist going down tonight at the metropolitan. We recorded the conversation but I'm pretty sure he changed his voice for the call."

"Go on" Peter nodded signaling he was interested on taking a potential new case, he seriously needed to clear his head.

"Okey, so just in case mystery man was onto something here we checked surveillance around the museum and guess what came up?" Here Diana smiled while she lowered two FBI standard case files for Peter to look at the surveillance picture.

As soon as he saw the men Peter knew he wanted in, on the first picture Mathew Keller was talking into a phone, and apparently he had been recorded walking around the perimeter of the museum five times yesterday. On the next folder he could see the high end criminal Ryan Wilkes, on some he was alone, while on others he stood close to Keller.

Diana saw her boss's face as he looked at the case files, deciding that they were definitely in for a bust tonight.

* * *

They had been sitting in the van for five hours straight and still there was no sign of movement inside the museum. Peter hadn't lost hope yet, it was only two a.m. and the job could happen at anytime in between then and nine in the morning when the Met opened its doors.

Half an hour later the FBI team heard police sirens approaching and Peter cursed loudly, much to the amazement of his team.

"Dammit! That will tip off our guys, can't the NYPD do something right for a change?!"

"Calm down boss, maybe our robbers are still back home, waiting to come down...-Wait! Was that a gun shot?" Jones, one of Peter's finer agents was interrupted mid sentence by what sounded oddly like a gun being fired.

"Oh! Here we go! Everyone in, come on guys! Take positions, this is going down tonight! Diana call for back up! Cruz, stay here until they arrive, explain the situation and surround the perimeter as quick as possible! I will want to talk to someone from NYPD after this debacle is over" Peter stopped to think for a moment while shouting orders at his team "On second though, call an ambulance, just to be in the safe side, I sure hope that shot was issued as a warning"

With that, the team burst into the museum only to find what looked like a kid hunched over a body in a small pool of blood. Scratch the kid part, this guy had a mustache, Peter though as he tackled what appeared to be the attacker to the floor. After the initial struggle the man was finally subdued, while Jones and Diana took care of the injured criminal.

After loading the guy into a stretcher and shipping him off to the hospital with Jones and the rest of his team as both bodyguards and jailers Peter took of with Diana to talk to the NYPD and interview their suspect. A closer look to the man in his hold revealed that what originally looked under the dim light to be a legit mustache was crooked on the guy's face.

"Oh! You have got to be kidding me! Take that thing off your face- wait a second! Nick Halden?" Peter peered down at the person in front of him, after getting over the initial shock and the crooked mustache he recognized the face he had first seen on a bank security check a month ago.

"Peter Burke" The man nodded, making Peter wonder how the hell the con man got hold of his name.

"Come on, you are coming in with me for questioning" Peter said as he hauled the young con into the back of his car.

* * *

Sooo, there it is, first chapter! Characters are not mine, blah blah blah. tell me what you think of it and if I should continue. Also, I'm looking for a beta for this story, so yeah...


	2. The video

The ride back to the bureau was oddly silent. Peter half expected the kid to try and jump out of the car as soon as they started moving, maybe pick his handcuffs or something. It was weird, to the point of concern, that the notorious con hadn't even tried to sweet talk his way out of the mess he was in now.

Once they made it inside the white collar crime division of the bureau Peter started breathing more freely, there was simply no way the young con would escape their custody now, no matter how well he played his cards they finally had him. Placing Nick in a room for further questioning, he decided to leave him alone for a while, maybe get him thinking, while he talked to NYPD about the unnecessary drama from earlier.

* * *

In his foggy mind Neal replayed the scene from earlier. Why? Why on earth would Keller just up and shoot Ryan Wilkes? The more he though about it the less it made any kind of sense. What about Kate now? Neal was the one under FBI custody, Keller had the painting, the forgery was already in place and if he managed to hold out for a while more he could let the FBI assume that they had interrupted the swap before it could be made. His forgery was good enough to fool people for a couple of years, maybe if it changed hands a few times they would finally realize it was a forgery, but chances were Neal would go to prison for breaking and entering and no one would be the wiser. There was also the issue of the body. Would the FBI slap him with an attempted murder charge? Sure, it would definitely benefit him. He couldn't own up to his real age. Agent Burke had called him Nick Halden, so that meant they though he was too old to be thrown in juvie or back into the system, thank god. Still, it meant he would have to tough it up in regular prison, in that case a murder charge would help get him into super-max, meaning individual cells and less chances of becoming anybody's prison bitch. Those murder charges were looking better by the second. Maybe it would get him a life sentence, but he was good at escaping anyway.

Neal swayed on his chair, nearly passing out from exhaustion.

_Wait, what? Chair?_

In a flash Neal realized he had been sitting in that same chair for about an hour, if his math was right. He had no idea how he had even made it there, but he guessed the man who had been after him for some time now, Peter Burke, had somehow maneuvered him out of the crime scene and into the interrogation room while he revived Kate's video in his mind.

Right after that god-awful blow to the head he got when they pinned him down, Neal couldn't help but begin thinking of Kate, maybe, just maybe, there was some detail he had overlooked, some sort of code Mozzie and him had forgotten about. Maybe. So he did that throughout the whole ride to the bureau, oblivious to the world.

_At first, the video seemed like a prank, there was an image of a wall covered in mold, and some street noise that could have been from anywhere in the world. No sunlight filtered the scene, but rather, you could see every single detail in the harsh artificial light of the warehouse. Then the camera zoomed out and Neal realized there was a small figure huddled out in the corner of the room. It took him less that a second to recognize Kate._

_Kate was wearing her favourite red button down. Neal absolutely hated that shirt, but he remembered how Kate used to wear it on all their dates because she felt cute in it. Her face was even more pale than usual, and her eyes were bloodshot. Apart from that, she looked to be totally unharmed, if only a little scared. Kate was probably pissing herself with fear, she had never been a remarkably tough girl, and her street smarts were incredibly lacking. That was what drove Neal to her in the first place, her sense of innocence. She was incredibly sweet and naive, which made Neal want to protect her and at the same time show her the world and the ropes of the trade. It was his fault, his and no one else's that Kate had that panicked, forlorn look on her face. Neal had been the one that dragged her into this life, into this mess. She could be safe and sound right now if she had never met him._

_The flood of relief Neal had felt when he saw her face again, and saw that she appeared to be shaken up but ok was short lived. He started mentally kicking himself for allowing this to happen._

_He forced himself to focus on the background, only to realize that Kate was sitting in the floor of a rundown house, with no sunlight as he originally though, and, was that an AK-47 in the background? Shit._

_Right then the feed from the camera was stopped and Keller's face came into view. He seemed to be in a different place altogether, in fact, Neal was pretty much sure that Keller was sitting in their house. Not only did he know where Neal and Mozzie were squatting for the moment, he had also gotten inside. Next to him, Neal heard Mozzie's breathe hitching as he came to the same conclusion._

_"Hi George, I hope you are having a blast back there looking for your pretty friend. Don't worry, no one has even as much as laid a finger on her. Yet." Keller's threat was palpable in his voice. Cooperate and she goes away unharmed, try to double cross me and I'm mailing her back in pieces._

_"You are probably wondering what the cutie in the warehouse and I are doing rtogether. Well, after you rejected my kind offer of a 30% cut yesterday, I decided a little incentive to work with me was in order. You see, I knew you wouldn't want in on your own volition, but I figured maybe sweet Kate here could persuade you better than me. I know you have a soft spot for her, and it was either Kate or your quirky friend over there." At this Keller seemed to look closer at the camera, almost trying to see Neal's face on the other side of the screen. "Hi Mozz, long time no see._

_"So, you guys left me in a predicament. You must understand, I really, really, want to get this job done, so I'm going to leave you and your little girlfriend in here to talk this out"_

_That's where Keller's feed ended and the camera switched back to where Kate was. Wilkes was with her now, poking her with her gun so that she would sit up. Neal almost cried out at this, Kate! Kate was in a room with a gun! The gun was touching Kate, dammit!_

_Kate sat up a bit and looked passively at the camera. In a slow monotonous voice, with no feeling, no inflection whatsoever she started talking._

_"N- George, I know you're watching this" Kate had caught herself on time to avoid using Neal's real name. "Mozz is probably there too. Ryan and Mathew have a proposal for you" at the use of their first names Wilkes poked her again with the gun and hissed "Stick to the script" at her, loud enough that Neal was able to catch up to what was happening._

_"Sorry" Kate continued. "Ok, so they have a proposal for you. Do what they tell you George. Just give them whatever they want so that I can go home to you. You are always asking me to trust you, now I'm telling you to trust me, please." Here her voice broke, and Kate said in an anguished tone "I want to go home George, please, I just wanna go home."_

_The video went black._

Neal fought to stay conscious for a little longer, he needed to tell Mozz to find Kate. Mozz could try to contact him any minute now. Just a couple of hours until dawn, and Neal was eagerly looking out the window for Estelle. He couldn't pass out. Not now.

_Come on Neal, just hold on a bit more, please, just..._

* * *

Peter Burke just finished talking with the NYPD about inter-agency cooperation. Apparently, the man who had called the FBI had gotten tired of waiting for them to catch the guys and had tipped off the NYPD about a heist going on inside the Met, which made the case Peter was on officially their jurisdiction.

He seriously hated dealing with bureaucracy, but there was no chance in hell he would let go of this case, not now that he had finally caught Nick Halden.

Thinking about the young con made him wonder about his status, he had left Diana in charge, but maybe he should go check that the guy wasn't planning anything...

As if on cue Diana burst through the door with a worried expression on her face. Something was wrong. Peter immediately stood up with his game face on, asking what the hell had happened.

"Boss, there's something seriously wrong with Halden. He didn't say a word, not even to call an attorney since we brought him in, and I was checking him over from the observation room when I saw him sway on his chair and blackout. Cruz is trying to rouse him up right now. Boss, I think we may need to call an ambulance." Diana said this in a rush as she gnawed her lip, she knew the con was young, and somehow she felt responsible for him. They were the good guys anyway, they shouldn't go around treating people badly, not even if said people were the bad guys or if they had just caught them trying to murder a man.

Peter swore loudly at this, his language had become more and more like a sailor's since the whole affair had started. He was sure, no, he was absolutely certain this was all a sophisticated ruse to get out of here.

"Lead the way"

Diana took him to the interrogation room, where a panicked Cruz looked clueless at what to do with the pale young man lying on the floor.

"Shit Cruz, you were supposed to wake him up, not leave him there!" Diana reprimanded her coworker.

"Halden, Halden listen to me wake up!" She had crouched down to where the con was and had begun shaking him gently by the shoulder. Suddenly a tremor travelled around his body, and the young man turned slightly around and started throwing up on the floor, right where he had been sitting moments before.

"Oh god, Lauren, please call an ambulance, we need to get Mr. Halden medical attention as soon as possible".

Peter was shocked still throughout the whole ride to the hospital, he had given the poor kid a concussion. At first he couldn't quite piece together what he was seeing, but then he recalled that nasty sound the boy's head had made when he was held down as it collided with the floor. Shit, he could have broken the kid's skull and wouldn't have realized. Things were already bad as they were, he just hoped this trip to the hospital wouldn't uncover any more surprises.

When they brought him in on a stretcher the doctor's face was anything but happy. Peter could see how he looked when he took in Halden's cuffed hands and bloodstained shirt. They hadn't even given him time to change. Luckily, he was going to be checked over by the same man who had operated on Wilkes earlier, so Peter could grab a coffee and get updated by Jones while the hospital staff worked on Halden.

It was definitely going to be a long day.

* * *

Hey! For the first time in forever, I'm committed to updating regularly. So expect one of this little chapters in your alerts every Tuesday. First off, though, I FOUND A BETA! So a shout out to .94! Thanks for all your help :)


	3. The Deal

"Peter Burke?" An older man dressed in scrubs asked as Peter stood up to meet him.

"Hi, my name is Dr. Powell, I'm here to discuss the patient Nicholas Halden, are you family?" The doctor peered down at him with a stern face, it was obvious Peter wasn't Nick's family, but he was supposed to ask anyway.

"No, I have the man in my temporary custody. Anyway, what's the problem? Is he going to be alright?" Peter asked, silently hoping no one asked how the kid had gotten that nasty concussion, he didn't think that he would be able to stomach lying about this one, and telling the truth would land him in a mountain of trouble and paper work.

"The man? Agent, are we talking about the same patient? The Nicholas Halden I looked over couldn't possibly be older than 17 at most. That's what I needed to talk to you about, this paperwork you did seems to be wrong. Anyway, to answer your question, yes, he seems to be going to be fine. A general check over up showed that he has sustained extensive injuries, some of which have not been able to heal properly-" The doctor started rambling about psychological damage when Peter interrupted rudely. He just wanted to know about the concussion, his guilty conscience urging him to disregard everything the doctor had said.

"Yeah, but about that concussion? How is he? Will we be able to take him over now? He recovered, right?" Peter urged the man.

Sighing, the doctor realized his complains complaints about the kid's past and general well being we're falling on deaf ears. So he decided to just answer the question the Agent was asking and be done with it.

"Yes, Nicholas Halden seems to be on the speedy road to recovery. Right now, we have treated him and he is sleeping off the remains of his concussion after being treated. However, we would like to keep him over night for observation. In the morning we will run some tests on him and if he responds normally then we will be ready to discharge him."

"Good, that's good. Thanks doctor" Peter felt as if a weight had been lifted of his chest, he had been so worried that he might have screwed up and almost killed the young con.

After an extensive talk with Jones it turned out that Peter's original thoughts regarding Nick had been right. The guy wasn't even remotely violent, they hadn't been able to save Wilkes, but the autopsy revealed that the shot had punctured Wilkes' lung and the guy had died from asphyxiation. It also turned out that, due to the point of entrance and trajectory of the bullet it would have been impossible for Nick to discharge the murder weapon, which left them considering the heist had been at least a three man job; one was dead, the other was in custody, and the murderer was still running loose around New York. He suspected, remembering the surveillance pictures from yesterday, that Wilkes and Keller had been staking out the museum, so either there was a fourth man or Keller was the murderer.

This left Peter to wonder what he had walked in on when he saw Nick Halden leaning over Wilkes as they made the bust. Wilkes was the last man he would guess was Halden's partner, but the kid had been obviously trying to save him from bleeding out, which begged the question of what the hell had Nick gotten himself into that got his friend shot. And why on earth a pacifist like Halden associated with blue-collar criminals like Keller and Wilkes.

* * *

Neal woke up to a soft cooing sound coming from the window.

After the initial disorientation he recognized his surroundings. A hospital, how the hell did he end up in here? Then, he remembered, Kate, the painting, getting caught and that awful pain in the back of his head.

Trying to make as little noise as possible Neal checked the guard standing on his door. No one he recognized, that at least was good. As stealthily as he could he opened the window to let Estelle in. He had been waiting for the little gal to show up with help from Mozzie.

Gently, he undid the scroll of paper tied up to her leg and started reading.

_"Keller wants to meet with you, our usual spot. Ten minutes. M."_

Definitely not what he had been hoping for. Still, Keller wanting to meet was good news. After the Wilkes drama he must have gone hunting for Mozzie, wanting to cut a deal with them. Luckily, they were at an impasse now, sure, Keller had Kate, but if he as much as touched a hair on her head Neal wouldn't even stop to consider for a second before pinning all of this on Keller. Maybe reveal his real age, pin both Kate and his kidnapping on Keller, coercion, theft, the murder of Ryan Wilkes, hell, he could even confess some of his past crimes and tell them Keller had tortured him into carrying them out, it's not as if he didn't have the physical evidence of torture, he would just have to tell them that Mathew Keller was the one responsible for his scars, and they would all believe him. Neal was an exceptionally good liar when he applied himself. Yeah, they were as much in power as Keller was now, still, Neal would do anything, even pin all the stuff on himself, if it meant Kate was going to go home safe.

With this in mind Neal prepared to escape from the hospital. Not that it was that hard, thinking he was asleep and too weak to try anything they had left him mostly alone, with just a drowsy guard standing outside his door just in case he tried to walk out. Neal scoffed at that.

_As if!_

Taking his time to do it as quietly as he could Neal locked the door to his room, that would win him some time in case they decided to randomly check how he was holding out, his second step was to disable the cameras looking into his room. Just a simple hack Mozzie had taught him years ago that would make the security feed on the computer run on a loop, repeating the recording from an hour ago, when Neal was sleeping quietly in his bed indefinitely until he came back to change it. Finally, as if on second thought Neal shoved the pillows inside the bed, arranging them into a Neal-shaped lump.

With that, he jumped out of the window and into the street, Thank God for ground level rooms, and went into the night to meet with Keller.

Half an hour later Neal was making it inside his hospital bedroom again. As he unlocked the door and reprogrammed the camera he couldn't help thinking how bad the whole thing had gone.

_"My darling George, I didn't think you'd show your face tonight after all!"_

_"Keller." Neal nodded, seething. "Where's Kate? I kept up my end of the deal, tell me where you've got Kate."_

_"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay? You see, the Feds interrupting us mid theft is a problem to me, that wasn't supposed to happen. No sire, and now I need someone to take the fall for this." Keller continued, casually looking over the gun in his hand. Neal recognized it from earlier, so he decided to do his best to appease Keller and keep that thing from pointing at him._

_"What do you want from me? I kept up my end of the deal, Kate should be home by now."_

_"However, the problem here is, Nick, that I figured out you have been lying to me this whole time. Seriously Halden, 27 is stretching the truth a bit don't you think?" Keller said as he looked up from his gun at him._

_Shit!_

_Keller must have somehow kept tabs on him and the Feds. Still, it was a relief the Feds didn't know his real name and were dropping just his alias everywhere. If the higher ups figured out he was Neal Caffrey, instead of Nick Halden or whatever, he was done for. Not that it mattered anyway, he wasn't planning on staying in the country for much longer._

_"What do you want Keller?" Neal asked through clenched teeth, he knew he was rapidly loosing any leverage he might have had over Keller._

_"It's simple really, you just have to go down back to the FBI headquarters, turn yourself in. Plead guilty to everything, who knows, maybe they will cut you a deal. Clear me out of this and your girlfriend walks away unharmed, rub me the wrong way and you will wish you had never been born." Keller finished his little tirade with a feral grin, waiting for Neal to contradict him or come up with a counter suggestion. When he saw no sign of protest from the con man he continued. "I'm keeping her as leverage until your questioning. Good bye George, as always, it's been a pleasure doing business with you."_

_As Keller turned to walk away Neal ran over a thousand plans in his mind. However, none of them insured that Kate would be unharmed when all of this was over. He contemplated stalling for time, maybe asking Keller for a way to ensure that Kate was delivered home safely once he confessed, but he knew that Keller would find a way to let him know._

Neal sighed as he plopped down on his bed. His day was just getting better and better. He looked sideways at the clock on the hospital nightstand, 6:30 a.m. Any minute now the residents would be up for rounds. He would be discharged and as soon as he was back inside the bureau he would confess to everything. It was probably for the best. Kate and Mozz would be off the hook and he would deal with whatever curve ball prison threw at him. Things would be easier there at least. On this happy note Neal drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Peter was annoyed. True, he had given the boy a concussion, sure, the boy had been left in the interrogation room for hours, his clothes soaked with blood. But they had never _denied _him medical assistance, as this nice attorney chose to phrase it. And why the hell had she invested herself in this case? She had come over to the bureau as the legal representative of the late R. Wilkes, not as a freedom rights defence attorney for Nicholas Halden. As it was, this lady, with all her well meaning meddling was just slowing his operation down.

Peter already knew Nick couldn't have been able to kill Wilkes, so if he could just move on with questioning his only witness he could put behind bars the man responsible for the death of Wilkes and the Museum job. It had already been hard enough to get violent crimes to resign jurisdiction to Peter after they found a body, but now they were refusing to let him interrogate Halden!

He had requested to be present when the doctors made rounds to discharge Nick Halden, so when the pager he had been given went off he wasted no time in going to the room.

He walked in to see the kid sleeping peacefully, he sure did look too young to pass of as a twenty year old in his sleep, still, Peter pushed the thought of his mind, it was hard enough for a twenty year old to pull off what this kid had done, it would be near impossible if he was any younger than that. He shouldn't even have access to half the resources he used as it was, being barely legal.

As the doctors walked in however, the young con jerked awake, and, looking frantically around the room settled his eyes on Peter.

"I'm ready to confess as soon as you can bring down recording equipment"

Well, that threw off Peter a bit, never in his life had he seen someone own up to anything that fast.

"Calm down Halden, we can't take you in for questioning yet. First we are getting you discharged, and then into a holding cell until we figure the finer points out." Peter tried to use a soothing voice, not that it appeared to have that big of an effect. The con looked ready to bolt the second he was given the green light.

Peter sighed and watched as the doctors ran tests on the con, waiting for the ok to get the hell out of there, for once, Nick and himself seemed to agree on something.

* * *

I know I shouldn't be posting this until Tuesday, but I was bored, and I'm suffering a bit of a writer's block (I'm around typing ch 11 right now, so updates WILL be regular) and reviews and stuff always make me smile, and helps me write along. Again, a shout out to my beat .94 who read this chapters (if you're reading this I'm still waiting for your opinion on ch5) so yeah. Early present? PLEASE REVIEW


	4. The Escape

After his interview with Keller, Neal had returned to his hospital room with a strong determination to confess to everything he had 'done'. However, the ever-helpful bureaucracy had denied him the pleasure of ensuing the safety and well-being of his girlfriend and had instead sent him to lockdown until they figured out a plan of action. Way to go.

Neal still couldn't believe he had been sent to jail. He figured it must be against his rights or something, to be sent to jail without a proper trial and interrogation.

Peter Burke _had _said something about the situation being temporary, but _still_. Neal couldn't help but feel cheated, he'd gotten the short end of the straw on both deals, not only was he sent to prison but he hadn't been allowed to 'fess up', so Kate was still being held. Seriously, the only reason he hadn't run after they told him the rules and submitted him to that extremely intimate and uncomfortable pat down was because of Kate. He couldn't risk Kate.

He would sure as hell file a complaint about being sent here on a _mere_ breaking and entering charge! Besides, for all they knew he could be an innocent bystander. Seriously, if any of these guys had even half a brain they would have sent him off to witsec, where they had as much a chance of keeping an eye on him as they had here, and not mix an innocent, defenseless guy with these pigs.

While he was at it he would make sure to file a complaint on that introductory pat down as well, some of that stuff was for Kate's eyes only.

He'd already spent a week in here and he was going crazy, it had been almost eleven days since Kate had been taken. He had no idea if they were treating her right, though he sure hoped so, and her chances of getting away intact were decreasing by the second.

It was while he was contemplating this that a guard came to announce that he had a visitor.

That was new. Sure, this had been his first Saturday in here, but no one had even as much as looked at him twice, so having a visitor was sort of a weird new experience, and Neal wasn't sure if it was totally welcome. What with his track record chances were his visitor was Keller telling him he had gotten impatient and offed Kate.

_Don't panic Neal, come on, that's just your brain messing with you. Kate's fine_.

So, to say he was surprised when he saw Mozzie sitting in front of him was an understatement. Well, it wasn't Mozzie per say, it was more of a long black coat, dark glasses and a fake moustache with nose, but still, he was pretty sure no other person apart from Mozzie, and maybe himself, could avoid all camera angles as casually as Neal noticed this man was doing.

"Haversham! What's up buddy?" Neal put on a 1000 watt fake smile and greeted the man in front of him with the first name he could think of.

"For your information, _mon frère,_ I'm going by the name of Do...nte, yeah Dante Haversham these days" Neal noticed how quickly Mozzie rephrased whatever he was about to say when the guard got near them.

"So, Dante, why haven't you been here earlier?" Neal tried as much as he could to keep the hurt accusation out of his voice. Not that it mattered anyway, Mozz would see right through it, even if he didn't want him to.

"Aut tace aut loquere melioria silentio, my friend. Nothing to report until today. I'll cut the chase and tell you. This is about our mutual friend, the one we were talking about before you got here?" As soon as Mozz hinted on having an update on Kate Neal's breath hitched. "Well, I was going through our old videos" A pointed look told him his friend referred to the ransom video Keller had sent them. "And I found out something we overlooked the first say, hundred times we saw it."

"Cut the chase Dante, tell me what you know" Neal was getting impatient, he loved his friend to death, but this hinting and not saying anything was driving him nuts.

"Estelle will come by with a plan to help our friend, but we'll do it once you are out of here. Just giving you a heads up" And with that Mozzie stood up abruptly and left.

Finally Neal felt as if he could breath again. Mozz had found Kate, and he was getting him out of here. Good, he would just have to wait a bit longer for Estelle to arrive with instructions and then this whole thing would be over. They would skip town, go to Paris maybe, and forget any of this ever happened.

Getting himself in the shoe was the best idea he had had all week. He had been originally placed, unfortunately, in the same cell as the only man who was in for life. Goody. Of course, the only guy who had nothing to lose was also on the look out for a girlfriend, and Neal's good looks didn't help matters.

So he decided that he needed to change cellie, maybe get an individual one. His first choice had been to try to sweet talk the guard in charge. Unluckily, his scrawny look didn't emanate that much authority, even less than usual now that he was looking rundown from lack of proper food and rest. If he ever got the chance to confess the first thing he would tell those suits was his real age, only now he was realizing that putting a sixteen year old in with a bunch of fifty year olds wasn't that good of an idea.

When his plan didn't work he figured he'd take matters into his own hands and move down to the shoe. Conditions weren't much better, and there was an evident lack of windows in there, but at least he would be alone and able to sleep. Plus, his food would be hand delivered to his room, so he could eat that crap in peace as well.

It wasn't easy to relocate, but he managed. Now the tricky thing would be to be able to get some yard time to meet Estelle and get hold of that escape plan.

* * *

Three hours later Neal was walking out of prison.

_Keep calm, Neal, they can smell fear. Lower your head, and remember to smile._

Decked in a guard's uniform, Neal greeted the doorman and continued to the unmarked car waiting for him across the corner. From there he recovered a pair of his civilian clothes to ditch the uniform. Next step, meeting with Mozzie to figure out a plan.

Getting a hold of his friend turned out to be trickier than he though it would be. He had been running around Manhattan for five hours now and he still hadn't seen a clue as to where Mozz was.

He'd checked every day of the week, the safe houses and even that dingy bakery Mozz had bought for him during a job. Still there was no trace of the man. Neal was getting impatient, and if he didn't find out where Mozz was soon he would have to go after Kate alone.

The plan was probably suicide, but if he didn't take a course of action soon the guards would know he'd skipped prison. Neal forced himself to calm down, he had until nine a.m. tomorrow 'til they started looking for him. Turned out being sent to the shoe had more perks than he had anticipated. Being on perpetual lockdown meant that he wouldn't be required to show up for head counts every afternoon and morning. They just acknowledged his existence in time for meals so he had even more free time than what Mozzie had originally planned for. Though it wasn't as if he was using his extra time for anything useful, he was playing Where's Waldo around Manhattan with his partner.

That's it, Neal decided. He would go after Kate himself. Once both of them were safely away he would go poking into the criminal underworld, ask around if anyone had seen him. He was giving Mozzie three days to appear until he panicked, but first of all he would set off to find Kate.

Mozzie, luckily, had given him the address of the warehouse he had tracked Kate into at the same time he had relayed Neal their escape plan. Apparently Keller was squatting in a house in Brooklyn, and he kept Kate not that far away, a few blocks over where the residential area ended.

Neal couldn't think of a good plan at the moment, but he was sure something would cross his mind as soon as he saw Kate inside that warehouse, so, driving around in the car he'd 'borrowed' he decided to head over to the warehouse, already anticipating the meeting with Kate.

* * *

He had parked his car down the street in case they needed an emergency escape route. Neal crouched down under a window. At first sight the only thing he could see was a man sitting on a table paying solitary with a beer. However, under a bit more scrutiny he realized that the man was carrying. His guess? Kate was tied up behind that door. The only thing he had to do now would be to distract the guard for long enough to be able to get in and out undetected.

A plan forming on his head he sent a general text to all mobiles in the area. He wouldn't be able to pinpoint exactly this guy's number, he didn't even know if this guy had a phone on him, though he guessed that was the case. So, taking advantage of an unpatched government security flaw in satellites he sent a text message to all cellphones in the nearby area. Luckily, the car owner had left his blackberry charging inside his car, so Neal didn't have to pickpocket a stranger for this one.

From his spot on the window Neal saw Keller's goon pick up his phone and read the message.

_"Complication appeared, ditch everything and meet me at the Empire State. MK."_

Neal seriously hoped that this guy was dumb enough to fall for Neal's ruse, if he didn't Neal would have to go in and drag out Kate himself from under this guy's nose. Fortunately, this man was as smart as he looked and promptly downed his beer and walked out the back entrance to the warehouse.

_That was surprisingly easy_.

Taking advantage of the empty room Neal hoisted himself up the window and ran up to the door where he guessed Kate was being held.

Opening it, Neal swore he could see his whole life flashing behind his eyes. Finally, breathlessly walking inside the room he looked down and saw his girlfriend.

"Kate."

* * *

Hey! Updates ARE regular, but there are only updates on Tuesdays, i may post a chapter in between the regular updates, but expect a chapter every Tuesday at roughly this hour. I'm trying not to post too many chapter cause I haven't finished writing the story, and if I have a writers block I don't want you to go a month without an update but rather to have aver a couple of chapters already done to fall back on. Just clearing up that updates are regular but not frequent. Again, thanks to my beta nixmixx94!


	5. The Girl

"Kate." Neal breathed.

Kate looked up at him, a hopeful expression on her face, and started to smile tentatively. Suddenly her face clouded and she frowned.

"Neal! No, Neal! Run!" Kate screamed at him, looking distressed.

In a flash, all Neal could hear was a loud rumbling sound as the explosion went off. His body was lifted from the ground, and all he could feel were the vibrations of the bomb rippling across his body. His mind was going a thousand miles an hour.

_Kate, she will die. It's my fault. Keller, that bastard. I might die too._

_Good, you wouldn't want to live without Kate_. Neal reminded himself.

His body was knocked down to the ground with a loud _thud!_ It felt as if an invisible force had slammed into him, lifting him into the air and was now pinning him down, leaving him unable to move.

Looking up, Neal could see the shrapnel of the bomb flying in all directions above him.

_Pink mist. _That's what they call the remains of a human being caught in a bomb.

A wayward scrap of metal scratched his arm, earning a wince from Neal. It could be worse though, he could be pink mist. He wished he could be pink mist. Kate was pink mist.

He would trade places with her any day of the year. She didn't deserve this.

After what seemed, to him, like a million years, things stopped swirling, and he felt the pressure over himself slowly subside. Not that it changed things. Behind him, the room where Kate had been kept was on fire. If only he could peel himself off the floor. He could go, look for Kate. Maybe, just maybe, she had survived the explosion. He had survived, and they had been only feet apart.

He knew in the back of his mind that there was no chance she had made it through, he had been partly sheltered from the explosion by the door and the room's walls. She had been in the middle of it. Still, he kept blindly hoping that if only he could get up then he could go and still save Kate. He refused to believe that he had gotten her killed.

Because that's what had happened. Opening the door must have triggered the bomb, maybe there was a sensor that he had overlooked, and that had triggered it...

_Come on Neal, one last effort. Get up!_

As much as he tried though, everything was getting fuzzier by the second, dark spots swirled around his eyes. Before he passed out, he could hear a car stop, someone running up to him. High heels. A kind face asking him if he was alright. Somehow, she reminded Neal of his mother. She had the same kind face and baby blue eyes.

"Mom?" Neal rasped. Then everything went black.

* * *

Elizabeth Burke was glad she was finally going home.

It had been a long day and the client she was working with was a particularly nasty pain in the ass. Not that she would ever say it out loud. Elizabeth was classier than that. As she got closer to her neighbourhood, El looked out the window at the houses she was driving by. Some of them were pretty run down, not habitable at all.

As she turned around the corner however, Elizabeth heard a characteristically loud _boom!_ come from one of the houses she had just passed by.

It was probably nothing, but she would just circle around in her car to be sure. Better safe than sorry.

She wasn't expecting to see a kid come flying out the window as one of the houses blew up.

As quickly as she could, Elizabeth snapped her phone open and dialled 911, telling them that they should send a police car down to investigate. Briskly getting out of her car she went to check over the kid.

Elizabeth was looming over the sixteen-year-old boy to make sure that he was still alive when he called out for his mom. Well, it was actually more like a hoarse whisper, but she still could distinctly understand the strained "Mom?" That came out the kid's mouth.

Her heart immediately went out to him.

"Sweetie, could you just hold up for a bit longer, please?" Elizabeth asked softly to the limp body she had hoisted up and was carrying to her car. The kid needed medical attention urgently, if only to treat the shock of being blown up. There was no way she was hanging around waiting for the police car and then the ambulance. Fat chance. She was driving the kid to the hospital right away. She knew enough about first aid to know that the young boy was going to make it though the night, but she would like a real doctor to check him over for her, just to be on the safe side.

Lowering the boy into the passenger seat, Elizabeth drove off to the nearest hospital.

They had only driven for a couple of blocks when the boy beside her started to gain consciousness.

"Wh'remI?" He asked, his words slurring together. Elizabeth though, understood what he was trying to say.

"Calm down honey, I'm driving you to the hospital to be checked up by a doctor. You'll be just fine. Can you remember your name?"

At the mention of the word 'hospital' the kid seemed to panic. Waking up visibly the teenager looked at her with a dismayed expression.

"No hospital, please." He whispered.

Elizabeth, sensing that the kid was working himself into a fit of hysteria tried to soothe him down. "Okay, sweetie, whatever you want, I won't take you to the hospital. Don't worry" That seemed to relax him so Elizabeth continued, "My name is Elizabeth, could you-"

"Neal" the boy interrupted her before blacking out again.

"Okay, Neal. I'll get you some medical attention though" Elizabeth talked to the unconscious boy. A plan already forming in her head. Swerving Elizabeth changed lanes and instead drove to her house.

* * *

Elizabeth was lucky. Her next door neighbour was a really nice paediatrician who had just given birth to her first baby, so getting a hold of a suitable doctor for Neal hadn't been that much of a problem. Dr. Sambia told her she would be over as soon as she got her baby sleeping.

She was wondering if following Neal's request to forgo the hospital was a mistake when the bell rang. Opening it with her best smile Elizabeth greeted her neighbour.

"Thank you so much for coming by. I told you all about Neal over the phone, but..."

"Don't worry, I've worked with traumatized kids before. The perks of working at a free clinic I guess" Dr. Sambia joked, letting Elizabeth know Neal was in good hands and that she should relax.

"Can I offer you something to drink? Tea, coffee, maybe a glass of water?"

"Some coffee would be great. Just get the pot running while I check Neal and then we'll sit down and discuss our next move." Sambia effectively dismissed Elizabeth, who was making her best impression of a helicopter, hovering all over the place.

Two hours later Elizabeth was sitting besides Neal, reading a book. Their next-door neighbour, Karin Sambia had left a while ago, leaving her a number to call in case Neal spiked a fever. Elizabeth's original assessment had been right, no major blows to the head, no internal bleeding. The only evidence Neal had of being present when that bomb went off was a piece of glass that had embedded itself in a broken arm. Both wounds being in roughly the same place Dr. Sambia had first disinfected the cut and then put a plaster around the broken bone, using the plaster as a dressing instead of getting out bandages.

Hearing a sharp intake of breath to her side, Elizabeth turned over to look at Neal, who was, without much success, trying to sit up after waking up in an unfamiliar environment.

"Hi Neal, you might want to rest a bit before you attempt to move" Elizabeth greeted him, while at the same time putting a hand up to his chest and lowering him down gently.

Neal slumped against the pillows and sighted. "Elizabeth? Can I ask you something?"

She was pleasantly surprised that he remembered her name at all, She had been half expecting a panicked boy to wake up, yelling for his mother. She also expected to have to relay back all the details leading up to how she had found him. "Sure, sweetie, you can ask me whatever you want." she nodded.

"Ugh, do you know... Is there any chance..." Neal hesitated, not knowing how to phrase the question "have you seen anyone else? I mean, when you picked me up, was there anyone else in there, a girl, maybe?"

El could hear the unspoken hope behind the kid's words, she didn't want to be the one to tell him what he had lost, however, he was asking about the blast. She didn't see any option out of it though. "Honey, when I came over you were the only person in the block. Maybe someone got away before the bomb went off, but I don't think anyone else was there" The look of revelation that Neal got in his eyes was one of such anguish that Elizabeth's own filled up with silent tears. "Maybe we could ask the police to check over if you want. I could call them..."

"No" Neal interrupted her. "It's okay, I don't think my friend made it out alive. I wasn't expecting her to." Neal's voice broke, and though his words said that it was okay, Elizabeth saw his face, his eyes especially, saying the exact opposite.

"Oh, honey, everything will be okay. I'll lend you my phone and you can call whoever you like, tell them you are still alive." Elizabeth offered.

Neal didn't look so sure. Mozz had told him via Estelle that he was ditching his old number, but the new contact one wasn't working, and apart from Mozz there was no one he could call. Well, maybe the police, so they could drag him back to prison.

Sensing that he had no one to call Elizabeth presented him with a counter offer. "Neal, honey, you must stay here with me tonight. I have a really nice guest room, and I could lend you a new toothbrush and some of my husband's old pajamas. Spend the night someplace safe while you recover."

"I couldn't possibly impose on you and your husband like that Elizabeth" Neal smiled his best con smile at her. It had been a while since he met a person as good as Elizabeth. "Thanks a ton, for everything you've done for me so far. I probably owe my health to you right now." Neal looked down at his plaster "I promise I will repay you for everything as soon as I'm back on my feet"

At this Elizabeth was outraged. Who on earth would be so heartless as to charge a sixteen year old for helping them! "No way young man, I'm hearing none of it. You are staying here for the night, and you are not repaying me for any of this. I repeat, I will not accept any form of repayment for any of this other than a heartfelt thank you." Elizabeth said in her best impression of a stern, no-nonsense voice. Still, she smiled a little at the end, to ease his nerves and tell him she was only part joking.

"Okay" Neal said, it was not as if he needed that much persuading to stay the night. He would leave first thing in the morning, before the police had any chance of giving Elizabeth hell for harboring a fugitive. He had nowhere else to go, and a warm bed plus a nice woman, who reminded him of his mother, looking after him? All for nothing! The best deal he had ever gotten. Meeting her eyes, he tried to tell her this with a look. "Thanks".

"You are welcome, honey" Elizabeth smiled at him. She understood perfectly. "Now I'll get us something to eat while you tell me a bit more about yourself."

After Neal had agreed to stay for the night the conversation came easy. Elizabeth told him she was married, had been for ten years, but she couldn't have any children, so it was just her, her husband and her golden lab, Satchmo, in the house. She ran an event planning business, loved scented candles, Italian takeout and jazz music.

As soon as Elizabeth had said she liked Jazz the young man laughed, apparently his best friend was a Satchmo fan too. This revelation led them to a long, pleasant conversation on the strong points of Ray Charles, Satchmo, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and pretty much every major jazz performer.

Elizabeth was more than pleased, she was ecstatic that she had managed to find such a knowledgeable, polite young man, who seemed interested in just about the same things she was. So the conversation flowed on for hours, until it was time for Elizabeth to cook dinner for Neal and her husband while she sent Neal off to take a bath.

Of course Neal refused, being the nice person he was, he offered Elizabeth help with dinner.

"Please Elizabeth, let me help, it's the least I can do after you took me in so gallantly." Neal pleaded.

Sensing his argument wasn't having that much of an effect, he stood up and started making his way over to where he assumed was the kitchen, Elizabeth in tow. "Besides, I will let you know that I once spent two months under the tutelage of Wolfgang Puck" Neal boasted, knowing full well that Elizabeth would understand who he was referring to.

"400 million Wolfgang Puck?" Elizabeth asked, referring to the estimated value of the Austrian chef. "I would really like to know how you managed that"

"I could get you a deal with him you know, we parted on very good terms." Neal smiled slyly at her, while at the same time taking out a casserole. After checking her pantry and fridge he decided to make some Lamb Kleftiko. "Do you have red wine?"

Elizabeth passed over the wine, waiting for the teen to explain the story behind how he met Wolfgang Puck.

"I was fourteen at the time, and looking for somewhere decent to eat" A covert look at Elizabeth told him that confessing to some mild cons wouldn't hurt her image of him, so he continued. "I had conned my way into one of his restaurants, claiming I was a food critic. I still can't believe they bought it." Here El laughed, signaling her agreement. "I was lucky, and Puck was actually working in that restaurant that night. After the meal, I went into the kitchen wanting to pay my respects to the chef and all. We hit it off, he had some extra space and somehow I ended up as his protégée. He's the one who taught me to cook. He used to say you never know when it's going to be your last meal, so you should make every one of them worth it, you know, just in case".

Neal had been cooking the lamb while he told his story. By the time he was done so was the food, so he gently poured the casserole into the three dishes Elizabeth handed him. Adding a bit of rosemary on the sides for decoration.

Only after Neal had cooked, set the table and run out of Wolfgang Puck stories was Elizabeth able to send him up for a shower. However, she didn't regret for even a second letting him cook, the Lamb Kleftiko looked delicious, and she could only wait in anticipation for Peter to come home and meet Neal.


	6. The Husband

Peter's favorite part of the day had always been that blissful moment where he was allowed to come home to his wife. He knew he was lucky, working in a good position for a job he loved, but there was something about hearing El greet him as he walked through the door every day, having a nice dinner and petting Satchmo while watching a game, that just did it for him.

Yep, going home was definitely the best part of his day. Peter couldn't wait until he told his wife about what he'd endured at the bureau that day. Nick Halden's case was going to be the death of him. He wouldn't know what he'd be doing by now if he didn't have El by his side to help him unwind.

Not only had the bureau forced him to drag Nick down to prison, they weren't allowing him to come in visit him either. He'd tried more than once, but as soon as he revealed who he was security just told him he wasn't allowed to question the subject. After the first three days it wasn't even about questioning Nick anymore. He just wanted to see how the kid was holding out, when he'd been arrested Peter noticed that the kid wasn't exactly cut out for prison, and he worried that the other inmates were chewing him up.

Peter Burke stepped out of his car and tried to shake Halden out of his mind. He was looking forward to a quiet, relaxing evening with his wife. Opening the front door he could already smell whatever El had cooked for them. He wasn't that good with fancy food, a nice big burger and a beer constituted a good wholesome meal in his world. El wouldn't agree with him. Half the time, she was cooking some extravagant dish or other, either for her event planning business or to try and refine Peter's palate, and more than ten years later, he had to give his wife props for consistency at least.

"Hi hon!" He shouted into the house. Going on one knee to pet his golden lab, he realized he could hear the shower running. He figured El was having a bath upstairs, so it came as a surprise when he heard his wife yell back "Hi hon!" as her face popped out out the kitchen.

"We have company" El clarified as she saw Peter's puzzled face. He made her a sign gesture to proceed, still too out of it to get what was going on.

"Our company is a sixteen year old kid, so I had him go take a shower. He's staying over for tonight, I've already decked out the guest room for him, and I lent him a clean set of your old pajamas." Peter was glad El had clarified why their company seemed to be taking a shower at their house, however, her answer only begged more questions. Questions that he was suddenly afraid to ask.

"Hon?" Peter decided to tread with extreme care "Honey, where did you pick up a sixteen year old kid? And why are you making him stay over?" At a stern look from Elizabeth, Peter raised up his palms in the universal 'I-give-up' gesture. "I'm not against his staying, I'm sure he's a very nice young man. Just curious."

"Oh Peter, poor kid, he's fantastic. Neal is just so polite! And he was the one who cooked dinner, he insisted, saying it was too much of me to let him stay." His wife gushed.

Upstairs, they heard the shower going off and a door opening.

"There he is Peter, you should meet him. He was such a mess when I found him, I'll tell you all about it later. He really needs our help."

_Ah, so there was the catch. The kid needed help, and of course, his wife was rooting for the underdog. Nothing new there_.

What was new though, was going to the stairs to greet this new guest only to find a convicted felon looking at him, face white as paper.

"How did you dare con your way into my house?!" Peter whisper-screamed at him. His face probably as red as the conman's was white.

Shock only lasted for a few seconds, and the young man was already answering.

"I swear Peter, I had no idea Elizabeth was your wife. I wouldn't have accepted her offer if I knew you were the husband." The kid had regained some of his color and was now attempting to calm him down.

Both men were too wrapped-up in their discussion to notice the confused look on El's face. Peter was about to begin a tirade on the kid pushing the limits when he heard his wife clearing her throat.

"Neal, honey, how do you know my husband?" She looked tactfully up at the teenager still perched on the stairs.

"Neal?" Peter wondered at the name El had called Nick, realizing the kid must have dropped one of his aliases "Are you serious? The question is not how this guy knows me, but why is he here and not in prison where I left him!" Peter looked at his wife, his eyes going softer. "El, remember the guy I was talking about? The one in the Met almost a week ago?" At a silent nod from her Peter continued. "This is the guy" He said, pointing at Neal. "His name is not Neal, and he isn't sixteen. He's twenty and his name is Nick Halden. I'm sorry hon, he lied-"

Neal couldn't keep quiet any longer, he was not having Elizabeth believe he had lied to her face. Not after everything the woman had done for him, he wasn't a bite-the-hand-that-feeds type. "Actually Peter, I didn't lie to Elizabeth, the FBI knows a name I used to go by, and I just never had the chance to correct you guys. My name is Neal, not Nick, and I'm sixteen, not twenty." The infuriated look from the agent told him that just wasn't the smartest thing to say at that moment. "I swear Peter, El, I was going to high tail it out of here before the police even knew I was missing. You wouldn't have been in any kind of trouble or danger or anything really. For all anyone knows I'm either dead or still under police custody."

Elizabeth gasped. _How dare they?_ Both Neal and Peter could see the angry, incredulous look on her face, and while her husband couldn't possibly understand what Neal could have said to cause that reaction, Neal thought that he was finally out of luck. Elizabeth would start to see sense and she would turn him over to Peter any second now. What came out of her mouth, however, was a shock to both of them.

"Peter, you better explain how a kid ended up in prison instead of juvie, or a safer place, more suitable for a kid. While you are at it, maybe, you could tell me how said kid was not only terribly misplaced in said unsuitable prison, but left unguarded long enough for him to be able to end up inside a blown up house miles away from the nearest correction center." Elizabeth perched her hands on her hips. Knowing full well that not all of this was her husband's fault, but still incredibly angry at him for giving a sixteen year old an adult's trial and not even realizing his mistake.

At the mention of the blown up warehouse Neal sighted. He didn't have any more energy left to deal with this. If they were going to arrest him then they better well do it soon.

Peter saw his wife's face as the kid deflated. Sensing that he didn't have that much of an option left he decided to at least hear the kid out while he figured if he should send him back to prison -or juvie- and maybe eat a bit of that nice meal that his wife had cooked- no, that _Neal_ had cooked. Maybe that nice meal could wait until he was sure it wasn't poisoned. Yeah, it could definitely wait.

"Come on kid, I don't have the answers to all of those questions, and I'm sure El would love to hear the story. Besides, the food is getting cold." Peter sighted, as he signaled for both Neal and his wife to follow him.

* * *

Neal followed the couple into the kitchen. In all the drama from the last seconds he had pretty much forgotten all about the lamb he had cooked for Elizabeth earlier. Taking a seat at the table across from Elizabeth, Neal wondered what was going to happen to him now.

He must have the most rotten luck on earth. He figured you had to when the nice lady who picked you out of the street and offered you medical assistance to be the wife of the one man who was capable of getting you behind bars.

"So, Neal, why don't you start from the beginning. Tell Peter and me what you were doing out of prison. Not that I blame you at all, it was awful of them to send a minor in there" Elizabeth asked him.

Neal saw what she was doing, giving him her sympathy, she was telling him she was on his side, so he better damn well have a good excuse.

"Umm, I had some business I had to take care off, back at that warehouse where you found me." He started out tentatively "The thing is, I was kind of sent to an isolation cell." Neal said in a rush, hoping that the couple missed the implications. "So I didn't have to be present for head counts, just be there in my cell when they brought over the food."

"So that's why I still haven't got that call saying that you've skipped out" Peter finished his explanation for him. "How long do you have until they realize you are missing?"

"Not until breakfast tomorrow at nine" Neal smirked. Being in the shoe, he could have gotten in and out of prison countless times without anyone being the wiser. As long as he turned up in there the next day everything was good.

"Kid, you do realize I will have to make that call?"

At Peter's words Neal shrugged. He wasn't particularly fond of prison, but he didn't particularly care anyway. He could just escape again.

"Peter, could we talk outside for a bit?" Elizabeth pulled her husband up, almost dragging him out of Neal's sight, furrowing her brows at the mention of the kid going back to prison.

After what was probably only a couple of minutes but to Neal felt like an hour El came back inside with Peter on tow.

"Honey, I talked to Peter and he won't call in the cavalry. You will be able to stay for the night but first thing tomorrow you boys will head to the FBI headquarters to sort all of this mess up, okay?" Elizabeth informed him of his temporary stay in their house. "Now boys, eat." she signaled for them to start as she took a delicate bite of her plate.

Peter didn't look that sure and started mumbling things about poisoned food. However, one look from El shut him up and he began eating as well.

Neal smiled.

* * *

After what Peter was forced to admit had been a good meal, El had gone upstairs to show Neal where he would be staying.

Peter on the other hand, had decided to camp out for the night in their living room just in case Neal tried something. He never would have been able to sleep with a wanted fugitive in his house anyway. So Peter loaded up on the coffee and decided to call Diana to get a head start for tomorrow.

"Hi boss." Good old Diana answered her phone on the first ring.

"Hey Diana, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm caught up in a situation right now. Could you look something up for me?"

"Sure thing Boss, what do you need?" Diana answered. On the back he could hear a pot of coffee already being poured.

"I need you to look into missing children reports for a boy named Neal. He should probably be around sixteen years old by now, but I'm guessing he's been missing for more than three years" If Peter's hunch was right this kid had been missing from home for at least as long as he had been looking into him.

"I'll have everything by your desk tomorrow"

* * *

Hey! Sorry for lateness, once again thanks to my beta nixmixx94. Guys, I've got around fifty follows for the story, and I love you all a lot for it so thank you very much. Also, can I expect AT LEAST 50 reviews for this chapter? You know, everyone following should review, I really would love to know if you like where the story is going, if you think I should make chapters longer, shorter, if you think this goes too fast or too slow. Seriously. Review.


	7. The Interrogation

Neal had no idea why he didn't run last night and left to look for Mozzie.

Okay, maybe he had. Peter Burke had spent the whole night downstairs, awake and watching the tv on mute. Which slightly complicated things for Neal, not to mention that with the cast around his arm he seemed to be as graceful as a ballerina on crack.

So the great escape had to wait, either until Peter fell asleep, which, surprise surprise, never happened. Or until he was in a better position to walk out of the man's supervision.

Supressing a yawn, Neal changed into yesterday's clothes in a futile attempt to look at least decent. He was, by nature, a tidy guy, and force of habit had cemented his disgust for looking disheveled. Even if it was only six in the morning and he had been through a hell of a night.

"Morning Peter" Neal called out as he walked into the man's kitchen.

One of the most interesting things he had discovered during the past three years was that he loved pushing the man's buttons. That's why, every year, Peter Burke got an anonymous birthday card. Sometimes, when Neal felt particularly annoying, and Peter was having a difficult case -which more often than not involved Neal in some way or another- Peter would get random pre-paid pizza deliveries with encouraging words. Stuff like "Go get them!" Or "Team Burke Forever" were just some of Neal's favorite messages.

He wasn't even sure that the man knew they were all from him, which just made the whole game all the more amusing.

"Agent Burke" Peter grunted, correcting Neal's casual use of his name.

"Neal Caffrey. I though we had already done the introductions last night." Neal answered, actively choosing to misinterpret Peter's words.

Peter smiled. "I didn't get your surname last night. Caffrey? How do you spell that?" He said as he poised a pen over an errant scrap of paper.

Neal shrugged, knowing that the federal agent was just trying to annoy him into a confession or something.

"Here, I'll spell it for you. It's K- E- I- F- R- E- E." Neal smiled pleasantly at Burke. Noticing the older man's annoyed stare Neal did his best to look innocent. "Look Peter, if you forgot how to spell I could even write it for you, just hand over that pen." Neal continued to prod the agent when he saw the latter had made no move to write down his name.

Luckily, Neal was saved from Peter's wrath by El walking into the kitchen.

"Good morning boys, are you playing nice?" She eyed her husband's red face suspiciously.

Neal smirked. "Sure El, do you want me to help you make breakfast?" Neal volunteered. He had already made the bed he had borrowed and cleaned the room. There was no way he was giving Elizabeth any more trouble than what she already had taking care of him. Contrary to whatever Peter may think, Neal knew he was a handful, and he tried to help out wherever he could.

El just gushed a bit more at him. "Neal please, you are my guest, just sit back and relax while I fix you something. Do you like pancakes?"

"Banana pancakes?" Neal asked, perking a bit on his chair.

"Sure honey, whatever you like." She answered. Already getting the ingredients to fix Neal and Peter's breakfast.

At this Neal blushed a little, and tried, best as he could, to conceal the smile that threatened to break out of his face. Except for Mozz, Neal wasn't used to being taken care of, and even with his best friend, slash older brother, slash mentor, Neal wasn't used to terms of endearment. He knew Mozz felt for him, it just was that criminals were not as vocal about their feelings as random nice people who picked a teenagers up from explosions sites.

Out of the corner of his eye Neal saw Peter smile a little at his reaction to El's offer of making him his favorite pancakes. Which just seriously soured his mood. Immediately, Neal began looking around for things to hassle the agent with when his eyes spotted a pile of birthday cards, postcards and random little souvenirs from around the world inside a drawer which had been left open. He smirked.

"Peter! You kept them!" He exclaimed with fake delight, looking pointedly at the crap he had sent Peter over the years.

Looking befuddled for a moment Peter followed his line of sight. "I had a feeling it had been you the one who sent all of those 'get well' cards and pep talks written on the backside of pizza boxes" He sighed, not looking amused at all.

El however, on realizing the absurdity of the situation giggled a little. Neal smiled, at least he had made Elizabeth laugh, that deserved some brownie points on his book. Feeling pleased with himself he decided that he could face the day. He would just march into the bureau with his most charming, innocent smile and pin every single thing they had on him on Keller. It might put a bulls eye behind his back, but he would be a free man, and Keller would just have to deal with Peter Burke chasing after him. That would distract the criminal enough for Neal to be able to get on with his _other_ plan. He would be locating Mozzie as soon as he was out of there.

* * *

Peter had a nasty feeling about this.

As per his agreement he let the kid spend the night. El had filled him in on the guy's situation, and Peter was left even more convinced that Neal was in over his head. Who the hell blew up escaped teenage convicts?

He wasn't totally convinced that Neal was a victim, like El was, but he wasn't as confident that the teen was just a slippery bad guy as he had been before.

Besides, Caffrey had been nothing but thankful and polite, if just a little annoying. So no real harm was done by keeping him. Heck, the police didn't even know Neal had skipped prison, so either way he was better off at their house.

Peter had called Huges as soon as it was an acceptable hour. To say Huges wasn't pleased with the new development would be the understatement of the year.

The ride to the bureau was, once again, silent.

* * *

First thing first, Peter took Neal to the interrogation room. His team had already gone over surveillance tapes from the prison and found nothing. No wonder the police didn't know Neal had left.

Huges was with Peter, watching from behind the glass as Jones conducted the interrogation. Peter would have loved for the chance to do it himself, but Huges had overruled it, saying that Neal had already spent the night at the Burkes', no need for more contact.

"Sixteen year old Neal Caffrey, am I correct?" Jones read from the case file sitting between them in the table.

Neal's only reaction was to duck his head.

"You broke out of prison last night. Why?"

Silence. Jones decided to change tactics.

"You know, this stunt you pulled will double your time" He said, in the most blasé way possible.

Luckily, or unluckily depends on how you see it, this statement drew a response from Neal.

"My time? My time for _what_ exactly, agent?" Neal's words were laced with disdain. "As far as I am concerned, you locked up a sixteen year old kid in the same cell as a fifty year old paedophile. Without either reading me my rights, or my charges. And, if you really want my opinion, you shouldn't have locked me up anywhere in the first place." Neal's past anger was up suddenly bubbling forth "There was no trial, I was never ruled guilty of anything, you don't have any evidence against me, least of all probable cause. Hell, you didn't even know my name until I told you!"

Neal took a deep breath, he hadn't planned to lash out at the agent. "The way I see it, once I do get my fair trial you guys will be in deep with the office of professional responsibility."

At this reaction Jones stood up to meet with his boss, they should figure a plan of action.

Once he was on the other side of the glass Jones looked annoyed

"Peter, Huges, please tell me a sixteen year old kid did not just threaten me with ending my career."

"The kid is right though, we should have double checked everything before sending him in." Peter burst forward, god knows why, to defend Neal. After everything they had put the kid through, the least he deserved was a little patience and respect.

"And you know we would have, Burke, if not for that god awful lawyer who was so desperate to see everyone respect Neal's rights. I swear she did more harm than good with this one."

"Let me talk to him, he has more chances of opening up to me than to a complete stranger."

"I'm giving you twenty minutes Peter." Hughes nodded, looking at his watch.

* * *

Neal hadn't wanted to drive the agent away, he was just cranky.

He was glad though, that he lashed out at the other guy, when Peter burst through the door.

"Hey Peter, how you doin'?" He called out with as much enthusiasm as he could muster while being chained to a table.

Peter smirked at his reaction before sitting down. "Okay Neal, I was given 20 minutes to talk you out of this mess. So hear me out okay?" Neal nodded his assent, so Peter continued "You broke out of prison, we should have checked before sending you in, true. But that's not what we are discussing here. We want to know how you did it, so we can at least upgrade the security there. There is a reason those guys are locked up instead of roaming the streets."

Neal wasn't going to answer that one. He knew Peter was right, but part of the reason his plan had worked was because he was smaller than the other guys in there. They wouldn't be able to escape in the same way and he needed that security flaw unpatched to exploit it if he ever needed to again.

"Don't worry, there's no chance any of the guys in there will get out the same way."

"Okay" Peter conceded, knowing that's the best answer he was going to get. "What about the explosion? Elizabeth told me you were in a blown up warehouse when she found you. Who did that and why?" Neal looked down, so Peter tried to persuade him into talking. "Prosecution hasn't taken immunity off the table"

"Immunity for a name?" Neal looked up. "The guy you are looking for is Mathew Keller." Neal took a deep breath "There's an interestingly long list of crimes I know that Keller wouldn't like me to tell you. I've got a condition though; if I tell you, you catch him."

* * *

A/N: **THANKYOU_THANKYOUT_HANKYOU** to everyone who reviewed, reviews are my crack and you fuelled my addiction. Ill try to get you a chapter on saturday or Sunday, read the A/N on that one. This one's just a quickie to let you know I'm grateful to everyone who's been reading this. Again, love to my beta nix mix 94


	8. The Aftermath

Peter couldn't believe how quickly their whole case against Neal had crumbled down. He also couldn't believe the whole story the kid had told them about being tortured into breaking the law. If he was being honest, his gut told him that there was no way all of those crimes were Neal's idea, he could still remember the cocky teen's face as he pushed down on Wilkes' shoulder to stop him from bleeding to death, and half of the cons the teenager had described had Keller's MO written all over them. At the same time, he had a hard time believing also that _that_ heist in El Museo Del Prado involving a Velazquez painting had been masterminded by Keller. Somehow it seemed to have Caffrey printed out in nice, big, bold letters at the top of the file. So had a number of other scams the teen swore with his biggest, most innocent puppy dog eyes had been all pulled by Keller.

Anyway, it wasn't a matter of whether he trusted the kid's version of the story or not, but what they were going to do with him, and how on earth they were going to catch Keller.

"Burke, we need to find a place for the kid to stay. We can't have him roaming the streets if half of what he told is true." Hughes addressed Peter, breaking him out of his musings.

"Well, Caffrey is innocent, at least as far as we are concerned there is no evidence stating that what he confessed isn't truth, so prison is out of the question." _Thank God_.

Though Peter still believed Neal was more involved than what he claimed to be, he didn't want to see the young man back behind bars. For some mysterious reason, the idea that Neal was only Keller's front man didn't sit right with Peter. He was sure the kid had some mysterious criminal ability he was keeping them in the dark about that had prompted Keller into getting Neal to work for him, or maybe he had some stash of illegal stuff, hidden around somewhere...

"We already know that Burke. The thing is, our lead child psychologist tells us that a foster group home for criminals would be just the place to send Caffrey if we don't want him to make it to eighteen." Hughes once again broke Peter's train of through.

"Still, if he won't be staying in prison or in a foster group home where it's easy for us to keep a close eye on him, I have absolutely no idea of where he will stay." The older man continued "Come on everyone! I need some out-of-the-box thinking from you," He addressed the whole conference room filled with agents.

"_'I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.'_ You know who said that? Terry Pratchett." A voice which sounded oddly like Neal's buzzed over the intercom.

"Neal?" Burke turned around, trying to guess how the kid had not only eavesdropped into their conversation but also managed to take part of it. "You know you aren't allowed to listen in to private, confidential FBI conversations, right?"

The young voice spoke again. "Yeah, sure, I just wanted to give you some help with that out-of-the-box-thinking."

There it was, that cheerfulness which annoyed Peter to no end. It was as if the kid hadn't just told them about being tortured and watching his girlfriend die, but rather had talked about an amusing movie. Come think about it, Caffrey hadn't evidenced any of the typical victim attitudes when describing a torturer or a kidnapper.

"You could ask the marshals for one of those new tracking anklets. They are said to be tamper Proof, and up to now they have never been skipped on. There's case-law, precedence, it wouldn't be too hard to hook me up on it and let me continue with my life. You could check up on me at any time, and there would be no need to put me back into the system or into protective custody or some other doltish idea you guys may come up with" Neal continued, expanding on his plan.

_"Doltish idea?"_ Jones mouthed to him, looking perplexed. Peter noticed that Jones wasn't the only one annoyed by Neal's jab at their intellect. That is, of the people who actually understood what doltish meant, and not those who inferred that it was something bad but weren't quite sure what it was exactly.

"Caffrey, shut up. Berrigan, disconnect the intercom and go watch our witness." Hughes barked.

As annoyed as the remaining agents were, they had to admit Neal's idea was good nonetheless. They couldn't send him to juvie, foster group homes were out of the question, and based on the files Diana had found on Neal the kid didn't have much family. He remembered how stupefied everyone had been that morning to learn about Neal's past.

Apparently, Neal run away from home two years after his mother died. Her death had involved a weird accident with a flooded living room and a faulty light socket, leaving Neal in the sole custody of his father from the ages of seven to nine.

His first instinct would have been to pawn the kid on his father, but Peter was a good agent, and he knew that nine year old kids did not just up and leave one day without reason. There was also the tiny detail that his father had committed suicide a few months after Neal run away, basically making him an orphan.

They were stumped.

"The kid's idea is not a bad one though" One of the Harvard goons said after Diana had left to babysit Caffrey.

And maybe it wasn't that bad of an idea, but Peter was not about to leave the kid go on with whatever kind of life he had been having since he run away. Judging by his present condition it hadn't worked that good for Caffrey last time, and it sure as he'll wouldn't work for him this time around.

"Not bad, but there's the issue of where Caffrey will be staying. He is still underage, Agent, and we cannot in good conscience leave him to roam the streets alone." Peter glared at the Harvard goon.

"Well honey, we _do_ have an extra room back at home, and what safer place for a witness than under the watch of an FBI agent?"

Peter looked around to see his wife standing in the door to the conference room, brown bag in hand and about to drop him some lunch.

* * *

Hey everyone! I know, it's been MONTHS! I am a terrible person, but shit happens and life has a way of catching up to you. Right now I'm in a messy place, so it will be awhile until I update again, though not so much as now i promise. This chapter was unbeta-ed because for some reason my beta won't answer my emails... Nixmix.97, you know I'm talking about you. Hopefully we'll reconnect and my next chapters will be beta-ed again. So yeah, sorry for the long hiatus and the unforgivably short chapter. I promise I will pick up as soon as I get my shit handled. Sorry again, don't lose hope, I WILL FINISH.


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